Land of the Free

Nathan Rueckert

Posted on July 03 2017

July 4, 1982. Ronald Reagan was president, “Don’t You Want Me” by The Human League was the number one song in America, and nearly 66,000 baseball fans watched a giant firework display at Mile High Stadium in Denver setting the highest attendance record in MINOR league history.

This year things are a little different, Donald Trump is president and Justin Bieber holds the number 1 & 2 songs in America. But still, millions of Americans will fill baseball stadiums across the country, take their hats off for the National Anthem, and silence themselves until the singer finishes with “the land of the free, and the home… of the... brave.”

These days it’s hard to find that kind of silence. We are bound to our jobs, never-ending to-do lists, and can’t get away from our smart devices. We are hardly free, hardly home. Even though we are more connected than ever through technology, we are hardly ever truly together.

Baseball is that way for us to come together. It can be a quiet afternoon playing catch while “catching” up with your dad, or a loud stadium screaming as the home team rounds third base with two outs on the board. In those moments, it doesn’t matter who is sitting next to us, whether we agree with their political views, or what’s struggles we may be facing ourselves… in those moments we are living in the land of the free.

No doubt we will continue to look to our phones to connect us, express our opinions, and argue about “fake news.” But this Fourth of July we need to find each other more than ever. My advice: This year if you want to really celebrate freedom… find baseball, find togetherness, find freedom.